The basic patent describing phosphene generation by pulsating external light on closed eyelids is U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,756 (1977) to Hamilton et al. Hamilton teaches the use of a head mounted disc having a pair of eye holes. A rotating blade rotates at a speed ranging from about one to twenty-five r.p.m. The rotating blade is sized slightly smaller than the eye holes allegedly to avoid flicker sickness.
The commercially available Day-Dreamer toy improves on the Hamilton patent by adding side walls to block out ambient light, a turbine blade, a blow tube to propel the turbine blade and a fully blocked eye hole during the dark cycle.
There exists a danger of using the above inventions to children who cannot read the instructions. The instructions for use tell the user to close his eyes when pointing the toy at a bright light especially the sun. If a child were to emulate his parents actions of looking at the sun with the "Day Dreamer" toy, then the child would naturally keep his eyes open. This can injure the child's eyes since sun rays can injure the retina.
Thus the present invention improves the Day Dreamer toy by adding two safety features to prevent the user from mistakenly looking directly into the sun while using the Day Dreamer. Additionally, a mini flute is designed into the blow tube to add user changeable sounds to the user's experience while generating phosphenes. Finally, a solar powered motor is added to provide automatic spinning of the turbine blade. This avoids the effects of hyperventilation by repeated blowing.